


HOME OF WOLVERINES

by Honmyo_Seagull



Category: All New Wolverine, Dark Wolverine (Comics), Fantastic Four (Comicverse), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Family, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Johnny is a party crasher, M/M, Missing Scene, Slice of Life, Too much wolverines in one room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-16 15:49:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28958973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Honmyo_Seagull/pseuds/Honmyo_Seagull
Summary: Daken meets Gabby. Daken meets Jonathan. Laura had been used to her empty apartment, but the more wolverines she draws there, the better she feels, she has to admit. Then, here comes Johnny. Johnny meets Gabby. Johnny meets Jonathan. He might even meet Daken. The real one.
Relationships: Daken Akihiro & Gabrielle Kinney, Daken Akihiro & Laura Kinney, Unresolved Daken Akihiro/Johnny Storm
Comments: 7
Kudos: 30





	1. Hello

**Author's Note:**

> (NOT MY CHARACTERS, OBVIOUSLY)  
> Sequel to SURPRISE but can be read on its own. Set during All New Wolverine, since we never get to see the first meeting between Daken and Gabby. (Will be two chapters long.)

Daken has yet to meet Gabby. To Laura, it is evident. He is her brother. As soon as she had mentioned his existence, Gabby had decided he was hers, too. She isn’t sure Daken would think it that simple, he had explicitly said he didn’t want anything to do with the _twice removed clone_ , even though he had kinda helped when she talked things through with him as she decided to keep the girl with her. But still.

And Gabby… Laura thinks the girl deserves a lot of things she has no idea how to give her… Laura has no clue how to be normal, no inkling of how to be a family. She needs help. She has friends who would offer advice, obviously. But Daken _is_ family. Long ago, she had promised herself that she’d only take as much as he was willing to give, but… Well, people keep telling her she is allowed to want more from life, and she wants her brother.

It’s the first time she ever considers coercion toward Daken, would things not go her way. It doesn’t come to that, fortunately. She might still wonder at the fact that all she has to do to convince him is to say _please_. (He calls her a menace and asks her not to ever use that voice again. She has no idea what he means.) This meeting is going to be, well, interesting. Or catastrophic.

She waits for it with a sort of wary fatalism.

*

**

Daken stands elegantly dressed on her threshold, too smart for their little flat. He makes it look smaller. Shabbier. There are traces of Gabby’s mess everywhere and Laura feels a little self-conscious letting him in. She takes a deep breath to brace herself. Something tickles her nose. It smells fresh and soothing. Pheromones? 

“Daken!”

“I think we both need it,” he says, utterly unapologetic. Weirdly, it reminds her of Logan and his Canadian beer.

And suddenly she sees it. He is hardly through the door, but seems undecided about coming deeper into the flat. His coat is still on, he makes no move to get rid of it. His hands are deep in his pockets, balled like fists, not caring about breaking the elegant line of the piece of clothing. His head is held high, his posture perfect (she wonders if it has been ingrained in him), but his eyes flutter everywhere, hardly making contact with hers. He is as awkward as she feels, and it floors her a little. He is as _lost_ as she is. Figuring out this family thing as he goes, just like her… 

She instinctively reaches for him to hug. He extricates his hands from his coat, tries to embrace her back, doesn’t know exactly where to put his arms, his palms. She’s seen him flirt a lot, use his body as a weapon of mass seduction… His incertitude only makes her grip harder, more urgently.

“It’s OK, practice makes perfect,” a voice pipes. Laura turns and sees Gabby. Couldn’t wait, could she?

Laura feels her brother take a deep breath against her neck before he releases her. Then he resolutely faces the reason for his visit.

Daken is _so_ tall. Gabby is _so_ small. He is not exactly towering over her, Laura has seen him using his size to intimidate people before; this is definitively not it.

He doesn’t know how much interest to show. In doubt, go analytical:

“She really looks like you. She…” He makes a vague gesture near his face with his hand, “frowns her nose just like you.”

Laura reaches for her own face, feels it slightly scrunch. She flushes a little but Daken doesn’t see, still detailing Gabby.

Suddenly, as if his knees were giving up under him, he crouches gracefully, this time his head a bit lower than hers.

The concentration on Gabby’s features is intense. Something is passing between them, Laura thinks.

“So much curiosity and so little fear,” Daken whispers, his eyes squinting the tiniest bit, not leaving her face. And then he acts too fast for Laura to react. His hand is already lunging for Gaby.

**_Snikt._ **

His claws spring a breath away from the skin of the child’s face. Then, slowly, almost trace the scars on her brow, her cheek. Gabby doesn’t blink. Doesn’t breath. One corner of his mouth lifts up, appreciative.

The girl raises her own hand, slowly.

**_Snikt._ **

“We’re really the same,” Gabby softly breathes out. As if she hadn’t believed it till now, in spite of what Laura told her.

Her claw is smaller, whiter. To be honest, it isn’t much compared to his. But it’s here.

“Indeed.” Daken’s voice is very soft. His eyes searching.

Their claws clink softly against one another.

“Can I join?” Laura asks. One of her knees hits the ground; she reaches their level. It should look ridiculous. She just knows she wants to be a part of this.

**_Snikt_**.

“What is it, a reenactment of ‘One for all, All for one’?” Daken says, falsely annoyed. He makes it sound corny as hell.

Laura is not sure what he means, but the words please her: “I like that.”

“You have no idea where this comes from, don’t you?” He looks dismayed, and resumes, long suffering: “I have to get you books. You can’t go wrong with classics, you know?”

“I like books,” Gabby intervenes. “Is there strong-willed women in the book it’s from?”

Daken solemnly nods. “I’ve always related to Milady myself. She could fit the trope. But I’m not sure Laura would recommend her as a role model,” he answers, very seriously. But then again, Laura had gotten to know him as particular about his books. Like they’re more real than actual people.

*

**

She have never really paused to think Daken would have to meet Jonathan too one day or another when the (real) wolverine became part of the family. Laura is already lucky Gabby let the animal out of her room only _after_ she had a little time to meet her brother.

And honestly, it’s already one of her favorite memory, Laura admits in the privacy of her thoughts. Just the _face_ of him. To be fair, they might have, well, jumped him a little. He was just aware of a dinner invitation at their home. He hadn’t expected the fur ball _at all_ , which had thrown itself at his legs as soon as it was let free to roam the house.

“This is Jonathan,” Gabby says. “He is a wolverine. A real one.”

Daken… freezes. His face goes blank. To his credit he doesn’t even take a step back confronted to Jonathan’s… enthusiasm.

“That. Is a wolverine.”

“He is cute, isn’t he?” Gabby comments. But Laura thinks Daken is not really paying attention.

“Like in, Wolverine, capital W.”

The corner of his lips twitches. A smile that doesn’t know how to be born.

“Yes,” Laura confirms. There might be a hint of glee hidden somewhere in her voice.

“Yes, that’s my point. Big bad Wolverine’s namesake is a _cute_ little thing.” His eyes don’t go as large as saucers; that’s only in books. But his eyebrows are raised now, his eyes shining, their clear hue exceptionally vibrant.

“Not that cute,” Laura can’t help but point. “He chews a lot of things. Bad wolverine,” she says, pointing at the animal with a menacing finger. “You don’t get to eat my socks.”

This is the last nail in Daken’s coffin. His bark of laughter surprises even himself. Laura… has a glimpse of the child he could have been in another existence. Yes, already a favorite memory indeed. Even though it’s bordering on painful, because one instant, the resemblance with Gabby is uncanny. And it doesn’t last. Daken and his fucking self-control, Laura allows herself to grouse inwardly. It wouldn’t do to swear in front of Gabby.

*

**

Gabby is doing the dishes after their little dinner, junk food and frozen pizza Daken pretended he hated when Gabby was eyeing the last slice but didn’t dare take it. They might have eaten with their claws, and their secret will never leave this place (Daken joined but looked horrified, which might be why Laura had done it in the first place).

Laura thinks it’s ridiculous, seeing Gabby at the sink. This is the particular chore her little sister usually avoids with a passion, while she herself doesn’t mind it. She wants to impress her new brother, Laura supposes, and it’s kinda cute. Laura just hopes Gabby doesn’t think she _has to_ impress her brother. She is sure Daken is not going to help the girl, she heard him tell dish soap was murder on nail varnish, but he keeps Gabby company, still sitting at their kitchen’s rickety table (it’s new in the flat but still second hand), sipping tea Laura once bought on a whim, and which Daken said was “a not horrible blend” when he spotted it on the shelf. Laura doesn’t really like tea; Gabby doesn’t drink tea. (Yet. She looked interested.) Daken doesn’t mention how odd it is finding some in her home, Laura doesn’t mention she remembers Daken once saying he is a tea-drinker.

Laura has heard a noise from the living area, earlier. She has left her siblings to their own devices to investigate, but she still can hear the sound of their voices in the background, indistinct but soothing. She had thought Jonathan had toppled something over (again) but doesn’t see what at first sight. She straightens a few things of Gabby’s in the room since she’s here. Daken has left his greatcoat on the back of the couch. Jonathan is currently playing with one of the sleeves, it’s dangling at paw’s reach.

“Ho, no, you don’t!” she admonishes the animal in a low tone. She goes to save the garment, put it somewhere safer. It almost slithers from the piece of furniture before she gets to it. Daken’s phone escapes from its pocket, falls dully on the carpet, lights on following the slight shock.

The window of a message app is still open on the screen. Daken has typed a quick text (Quick for Daken. Daken never abbreviates ANYTHING in his texts.) with an image file attached: Jonathan in all his glory, all pleading eyes for the piece of jerky dangled just out of reach. [To: Match Boy / Johnny Storm] _This is ridiculous. Look what people are really afraid of when they hear the name Wolverine…_ The message is in there, waiting patiently to be sent, deleted or saved.

Laura actually remembers her brother snapping a picture of Gabby and her (for comparative purpose, he had pointedly said) and one of their pet. She remembers his fingers flying on the screen afterwards, typing a few words, and a pause, index in the air, a slight frown, and the way he had dismissed the phone as if it burned a second later, relegating it in his coat, all the while carrying a whole discussion with Gabby about books she _had_ to read.

Laura thinks for a second, phone in one hand, coat in the other. She and Daken, they work. Because they don’t interfere in each other’s life, mostly. They’re comfortable but keep a safe distance. There’s a continual, subtle formality. They don’t drop on each other unannounced; they don’t call randomly on a whim _baring emergencies_ like the existence of a clone:sister. Laura even stopped asking about the state of Daken’s healing factor since the night he had snapped over the phone that if she only felt responsible for him because he was vulnerable, they had nothing else to say to each other. (She hasn’t even mentioned his arm when he arrived, but she observed that though whole, it still looked weak. _Baring emergency_ , she _won’t_ ask.) In consequence, their conversations are odd, far and few between, since they left Mystique’s ship.

But they’re all the more precious to her. She has told him when she stopped dyeing her hair yellow and blue. He has told her about an _old acquaintance_ of his (Daken’s words, Laura heard in his voice he was more) who, he had just learned, had died anyway, even though he thought he had spared him this fate. She has told him about taking the name Wolverine. He has told her about the Dark Avengers and how he thinks she’ll be a better Wolverine than any other person having born the name. (He has told her to ditch the primary colors scheme as well. She’s not sure whether she’ll ever agree to it completely.) There’s a kind of unofficial schedule. She knows more or less when her brother will call to check in.

This, this is a spontaneous text, to be send to someone with whom you’re used to share things on impulse with, on a daily basis, as they come. Daken had that with Johnny Storm. Once. And he doesn’t anymore. That’s what the unsent message tells her. It makes her sad, suddenly. She kind of thinks her brother deserves more people to care about. He is better at it than he thinks. Her fist grips the phone harder. He is a better brother than she had thought he ever would be, so she can let it slide that he is not always a good person. She _likes_ being able to be selfish from time to time.

Laura worries her bottom lip a little with her teeth. Then decisively presses SEND with her thumb. She drops the coat and the telephone on the couch again and hastily leaves this area of the flat. Gabby smiles when she reenters the kitchen space. The corners of Daken’s lips are shyer but still curve upwards.

“Still sure you don’t want to try your tea?” he asks. She ignores the light flavor of sarcasm in his voice and leans against the wall, just drinking the sight of them.

Hardly a handful of seconds goes by before her brother’s phone discreetly vibrates. Daken is considerate that way: usually, he mutes the ringtone of his phone when he has company. Laura finds it endearing. But wolverines (the human and the real ones) have keen hearing anyway. For a full second, Daken looks like he is about to ignore the call and remains seated. But he caves with an apologetic gesture and stands up, brushing past Laura on his way to the living room.

*

**

“You were Wolverine, once,” the voice says in a strange, amused and accusing _non sequitur_.

Daken’s mind goes blank for a second; the voice is too familiar.

“… Johnny. I… How…”

“You’re speechless.” Johnny doesn’t sound smug. Mildly surprised, at most. His tone then upgrades to close to heartbroken. “You didn’t think I’d answer if you texted me.”

“I didn’t,” the mutant answers on reflex.

“Dammit, Daken—”

“I didn’t text you, I mean.”

“I did,” Laura says, suddenly here on her tiptoes, hand on Daken’s shoulder, also leaning towards the phone so they both hear.

“Laura? Is that you?”

“Hello, Johnny.” Daken finds it funny that she almost waves while talking, even though Storm can’t see. “I’ll let you talk with Daken, now.”

“Ho.” And after a beat, “I can hang up, since you didn’t really want to contact me.” He sounds crestfallen.

“No! Don’t.” And, yes, Daken does surprise himself. He breathes out slowly through his nose. Then, quieter: “I wanted to. Laura just sent the message, I wrote it. I just, didn’t… send it,” he lamely finishes. And _where_ is his usual smoothness? he irritably thinks.

“Ho.”

“Force of habit, you know. Realized it was stupid.”

“Yhea. I do that to. Something happens, I want to tell you and… I don’t,” Johnny forlornly concludes. “It happens _all the time_.” He emphasizes the words as if it meant something.

“But we’re not these people anymore.” _Never_ _were_ , Daken doesn’t say, even though he doesn’t know whether he’s protecting his original lie or does Johnny a small mercy. Why _on earth_ didn’t he just shut down the conversation right away?

Daken had crafted the man Johnny met _so well_. Off the black nail polish, the metal glint of the piercings. In the jean and nondescript t-shirt, the shy loose body language when they were alone, the apparent openness. Daken is used to make his whole body a bait, to dangle what they want in front of people, in order to get what _He_ wants. It’s second nature to him. Even though Johnny looked but never touched, he knows he had him hooked. He could _smell_ it.

Daken doesn’t even know how he got so caught in his own lie that he found himself missing it. (Not true. He knows, he just doesn’t admit it. It’s when Johnny kept texting, kept calling, kept talking, kept meeting, even after the time of the Dark Avengers was long past, when the F4 didn’t need any inside man anymore.) For his part, in his mind, maybe Daken was just maintaining an asset. Perhaps he got blindsided by the easiness of it all. And it had sometimes been so much _fun_ , like breathing for the first time. It had been addicting, if he had to be honest. Not to be needed for _something_. To be wanted just to be _there_.

It’s funny that, had he never known this from his time in Johnny’s company, he might not have been able to recognize it in Laura. This absence of ulterior motive. Laura who knows who he really is, the bad and the worst. Unlike Johnny. Which is why, even though Daken is quite confident he can believe in Laura, he knows, _knows_ , that Johnny’s _friendship_ (God, how corny has he become, _how the mighty have fallen_ , he hates with a passion this hackneyed word for self-serving mutual interest…) is just a parody, an illusion. He crafted it himself, after all, he would know. It would pop like a bubble on his claws, if Johnny really were aware of whom exactly he was bestowing his gifts onto… Clinging to it after the Heat fiasco just feels like a delusion.

“Nonsense,” Johnny says, cutting through his thoughts. He sounds _so_ sure. “We just got sidetracked by a death or two.”

Daken feels something tightening in the back of his throat. He doesn’t know if it’s a laugh startled out of him, a pained groan at Johnny’s naivety, or something else entirely (and even worse). So he clenches his jaw and stays silent. His eyes close on their own volition. With his keen hearing, he focuses on the breathing at the other end of the line, it’s kind of lulling and familiar, and he knows what he should do. He just has to wait. You’ve got to be two to tango, and Johnny will learn he can’t sustain a conversation all by himself, right?

“Yhea.” Johnny sounds suddenly a tad defeated, as if the silence were too heavy, were enough to sap him of his levity. And after another beat, “You can call me, you know.”

“Not a good idea.” Daken winces. He wasn’t supposed to answer. _He knows what he should do_ , what a joke. Still, Daken can’t totally erase a trace of fondness in his tone and hates himself a little for that.

“Why?”

“Some people are not wired to care.” And he knows it’s his turn to have the weight of certainty on his side.

Daken has learned a lot since Romulus’ disappearance. He’s been free to roam the world on his own terms. It might have been equal parts triumphs and disasters, but he is learning. While he still thinks his master’s mantra is mostly true, **no one cares** ; it seems to know a few improbably rare exceptions. Laura for example. He _also_ knows that even if he wanted to, it is not in _his_ nature to care. (Donna comes to mind, but others too, people he crossed path with through the years, felt sometimes kinship to, but that he never stopped to save or to love.) He starts to wonder whether he’s always been that way or was _made_ to be that way, but in the end, it doesn’t really matter. _Psychopath_ is a comfortable cloak to wear; it keeps everybody from wondering. People are still as insubstantial as ants as far as he is concerned. Realistically, at this family thing, Laura does the job for the both of them, which is why it’s weirdly difficult to deny her at times.

“But, you care about Laura. Don’t you?” And if Johnny eerily echoes his own thoughts, the _fantastic_ man suddenly sounds unsure.

“Laura is virtually unkillable, I don’t have to worry about caring or not about her. She’ll be fine whether I do or I don’t.”

“So you _worry_ about _me_.” This coldness sounds foreign in Johnny’s usually warm voice.

“I didn’t say that,” Daken snaps. But inwardly, he comes back at his wording. He didn’t _mean_ to say that, did he?

“So why don’t you hang up, then, since even _talking_ to me is too much for you,” Johnny pushes.

Ha, the Human Torch is reverting to type, Daken thinks. Anger is always a primary answer with Johnny. Impulsive. Quick to get incensed. Quick to _flame on_. Daken is going to get what he wants. “I’m going to,” he says.

“Liar. I dare you,” and, low and behold, Johnny can do vicious, too!

And now it is easy. For all that he is a consummate liar, Daken rarely bluffs. He quietly cuts the communication.

“Done?” Laura asks a moment later from the threshold of the room.

Daken lets himself fall back on the battered couch. He feels listless. To top it all, Jonathan tries to climb him.

“Hey, you. You’ve made such a mess,” Daken tells the reared up wolverine which has his front paw on its guest’s thigh.

“I doubt it’s the critter’s fault,” Laura intervenes, letting herself be seated beside him on the couch. It’s not that she is judging her brother. It’s just it’s not often in herself to shy from the truth.

“I blame you too,” Daken says, the same moment Gabby, the smell of dish soap trailing in with her, joins them in the living room space, demanding: “Don’t call him a critter. What did he do?”

Daken never answers.

They all hear it at the same time. The sonic boom in the distance. Then the mighty whoosh of displaced hot air. They see the light of a fireball pass the living room’s window, making the panes tremble. It’s only a handful of seconds before someone knocks.

Laura watches Daken’s profile; her brother intently looks in the direction of the doorway for a moment.

Another series of knocks. Polite but stubborn.

He lets his head fall against the backrest. His arm is thrown over his face. His lips are curled in disgust.

“I’m not here,” Daken says.

“You’re being melodramatic,” Laura retorts, standing up. Gabby is already racing to the door.

*

**

“I’m going to.”

“Liar. I dare you.”

So Daken does, obviously. How has he not seen it coming?

_Shit._

Johnny is staring at his phone. His fist is clenched around it. The metal casing is warming up incredibly fast, he reminds himself to let go just in time. How could it go so wrong so easily?

Because _some people are not wired to care,_ apparently _._ What does it even mean! He hates that Daken actually sounded gentle.

The problem with loss is that it’s not exactly cumulative. Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe you can deal with only one grief at a time, because it would be impossible to live with all of them at once.

He misses his family like mad. They are the _one big loss_. And still, even though the sadness feels always there, weighing on him, he can’t miss them as a whole. There are days he’d give everything for a hug from Sue. And others he would beg for remembering the exact same tone of voice Reed used when he was explaining something wonderful. And still others he would surrender everything for the feeling of his fingers in his nephew’s and niece’s hair. For months he has agonized about the fact there is nothing he can do to get to them, to save them.

Daken is a different matter altogether. Daken’s rampage, months ago, the one of a drugged-out-of-his-head dying mutant, had left scars and nightmares on Johnny’s mind. Daken had been ready to risk innocent lives; he had hurt Reed. Johnny had been ready to _burn_ him in retaliation, dammit. And Daken had died anyway: at that time this pain had had nowhere to go. Johnny had felt numb. Horrified to be unable to mourn someone he had once called a friend.

And then, the weirdest day ever. It was not long before he lost his own family. Sue had cornered him, talking to him gently. Daken had survived, somehow. But Logan, of all the horrors, had just killed Daken. That’s how Johnny had learned about both, the same day. Johnny can’t even fathom how it could have happened. How a father could do that to his son, even an estranged one.

Bizarrely, it had been easier to shed a few tears that time. And also wonder… _What if I had been able to find out he was alive before it all came down. What if, then? Would I have reached out for Daken?_

To think he would ever be thankful for the existence of death seeds? Yes, he had been. Absurdly so, when he heard the mutant was once again roaming the world. Well, Daken seems not to want to stay dead, honestly. And he relief is always huge to hear about him from third parties from time to time, whatever the circumstances, when he had thought for a while the mutant was gone forever.

There even has been days in the recent months, when he has missed Daken like a missing limb. These days are always the easiest to deal with, comparatively, in the clusterfuck that has become his life since his family’s disappearance. Usually because Daken seems to _always_ resurface, and sometimes it feels enough to know he is _alive_. Yes, the world somehow seems better with Daken alive somewhere, how strange… So it has also been easier till now to sit on his grudge and never resolve anything between them… Until the next time Daken would die, he sometimes thinks with a dark humor which scares him a little, so callous with the idea of Daken’s very existence.

It’s just Johnny has always felt they would simply settle things, one day… (But somebody once told him _one day_ meant _never_ , he doesn’t remember who, so now it sticks with him, this saying. And still…) He has steeped in this confused hope for so long…

In reality, he has had his chance and he has blown it, never reaching out first himself. There’s nothing left to salvage. That’s what Daken is telling him. Maybe he has just waited too long.

Reed would come up with a foolproof plan to make it all better. It’s not Johnny’s style. Johnny just _flames on_.

*

**

“Who are you?” he says, looking at the kid who has opened the door.

Johnny is pretty sure Laura lives here. He knows it was Logan’s apartment, once; Sue had the address in an old notebook of hers he has kept. But this is not Laura, even though the stance and the assessing gaze are eerily familiar.

“Rude,” she answers, with a stubborn downturn to her lips.

She looks like a small pissed off Laura. But people don’t get deaged that often. Normally. Even if they see a lot of weird things in the hero community. Could it really be _Laura_? Time Travel? But, the scars… Younger self from another dimension? That happened to a bunch of X-men recently, right? Is there a younger Laura running around these days? Johnny is a little lost, and thrown. He hadn’t expected a roadblock so soon in the game.

The kid doesn’t offer to introduce herself and honestly, he is so used to people recognizing him that he doesn’t even think of his own side of the introductions.

It feels like a stand off. He tries again.

“I’m looking for… Laura.” He sighs in relief as he spots her coming over the kid’s shoulder.

“I’m not sure it’s a good idea,” she tells him, first thing. “Pushing Daken into a confrontation is _never_ a good idea.”

“Hello Laura,” he answers, sheepish. “Nice to see you again.”

He has not met with Laura a lot, but he has crossed path with her a few times when she came to watch the kids. (My favorite babysitter, Sue used to call her.) And he can honestly say he liked her. Something seems to loosen in her shoulders, and a hint of a smile softens her face.

“Hello Johnny. You’re welcome here, but if I were you I wouldn’t have come.”

“Who is he? Why shouldn’t he have come?”

Johnny had forgotten the child already, he’d confess.

“He’s here for Daken,” Laura says, putting her hands on the kid’s shoulder.

“What does he want with him?” And, wow, _that’s_ suspicion. Usually kids _like_ him. Her little fists are clenched at her side. This particular angle of the wrist before the claws pop, he recognizes it. It’s when the idea hits him.

“Laura… I know people in your family sometimes look younger than they are, but you’re not her mother, are you?”

“Ho, for God’s sake, Johnny, you’re ridiculous.” It comes from behind the girls.

It’s _his_ voice. It’s Daken. It feels like a rush. Daken’s still here, Johnny didn’t miss him, the mutant didn’t leave before Johnny could reach him. It was a shot in the dark, really. Thinking that they would both be at Laura’s place. Relief feels like a shot of hard liquor on an empty stomach.

Then, Johnny’s brain stalls. Daken is a lot older than he looks too, he suddenly remembers. _The oldest guy in the room_ , Sue used to say about Daken. It’s how he knows it’s a even possibility with the wolverines.

“She is _yours_?” Johnny hardly recognizes his own voice; it’s just an octave higher than usual.

Daken slowly blinks. It reminds him of his and Sue’s cat when he was a kid. The animal blinked that way when he sometimes looked at his human and couldn’t figure him out. (Or thought he was plain stupid. It was a cute cat with a mean streak, after all.)

“It’s Gabby. She’s my _sister_.”

There’s like a shimmer in Laura’s stance, she looks like she stands marginally prouder. Gabby whips her head so hard towards Daken that Johnny reflexively winces. When Laura and Gabby smile at each other, there’s a kind of triumph in the look they share.

“That she is,” Laura says with deep satisfaction.

“You’ve said it. It’s official, now,” the girl adds at Daken’s intention.

Daken freezes, and then actually growls as if just realizing what he has just uttered.

“Don’t let it go to your head.” He is closer now, raises his hand and reaches for Gabby as if to ruffle the child’s hair but aborts his gesture at the last moment with a soft hiss.

“What’s wrong with your arm?” Johnny asks, frowning.

“Nothing’s wrong with my arm,” Daken snaps. There’s a warning to drop it in his voice. It comes complete with narrowed eyes. It reminds Johnny he might have lost the right to ask personal questions. But it sounds like such an innocuous inquiry that Johnny really feels the burn of the rebuttal.

“I have coffee,” Laura says, a tad too loud and still mostly ignored.

There’s an awkward silence. Gabby makes to stand closer to Daken, while he is glaring at her new guest, seizes his hand authoritatively (the other one, the one without the tattoo), pushes her brow into it and puts it half on her hair, and keeps it there, griping it with both of hers, face stubborn. That draws Daken’s attention, obviously. He struggles a little to get the right words past his throat, Johnny notices.

“I get it, what you wish,” he tells the girl. “Just, don’t expect too much.”

Which is also more or less what Daken told _him_ on the phone. Why does he have to resist so much the attempts to get close to him? Johnny feels like he is missing some critical input. He doesn’t know whether to feel relieved or not that he is not the only one struggling to get through Daken.

“You’re alright,” the girl, Gabby, states.

Daken sucks in a deep breath, as if he were steadying himself. Johnny could swear his first reflex is to wrench his hand free, but the kid holds on.

“Your standards are as low as Laura’s,” he comments.

“You’re doing alright,” Gabby insists.

“You are,” Laura echoes.

“Hm, I’ve come to see the wolverine, obviously,” Johnny adds, totally conscious he might be spoiling a moment. But he _may_ be trying to rescue Daken who seems uncomfortable with all the feelings oozing around. It’s what friends are for, right?

“Which one?” the kid smartly points, releasing her brother at last and focusing on him, not exactly mollified.

“What?”

“Laura is. Jonathan is.”

“Ho! Yhea, that’s true,” Johnny replies. _Jonathan?_ he thinks. _Who’s that?_ “I meant the actual one. He has sent me a picture,” he explains, gesturing to Daken who glares in response. “He was too, once, you know? Wolverine.” Johnny adds in a stage whisper. (He could almost swear he hears the mutant say, _And_ _never ever again,_ under his breath.)

“He was? How come I didn’t know?”

“We’ve met like five minutes ago,” her brother points.

“A few hours, now,” Laura serenely corrects.

“Even so,” Daken glowers. OK, _Now_ , Johnny feels like he is intruding. They’ve just _met_? How come?

“Where is Jonathan, by the way?” Gabby asks, looking around her.

“Bathroom. I’ve closed the door,” Laura tells her. “You know how he jumps new people.”

“Wait, that’s the _wolverine’s_ name?” Johnny asks of Daken. Who doesn’t bother to answer him, but addresses Laura:

“He _has_ jumped _me_. How come you didn’t warn _me_?”

“But it wouldn’t have been as much fun, Daken,” Laura says, all wide-eyed innocence.

Daken does the cat-blink thing again.


	2. AND GOOD NIGHT

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where everyone tries to make sense of Daken, mostly fails, but eventually gets some insights.  
> The one where Daken tries to make sense of everyone, mostly fails, but eventually gets some insights.  
> The one where Johnny puts his foot in his mouth a lot.  
> The one where Jonathan puts a prize in his mouth a lot.  
> The one where Laura asks for what she wants.  
> The one where Gabby knows more than she lets show.

The meeting with the real wolverine is lively and messy and Johnny hears himself laugh for the first time since he doesn’t know when. It seems to make Gabby warm up to him QUITE a lot as she starts re-telling how the animal came into her life and asking Johnny questions. Mostly about her siblings. They sit on the couch, the animal between them, happy to be petted and cuddled. 

Said siblings are in the kitchen. From the couch they can see them puttering about. Laura is making coffee for him, Johnny knows. He doesn’t mind; he burns caffeine as easily during day than around midnight. Daken is handling his own new pot of tea, apparently. He followed her even though Laura said she didn’t need him to _boil water_. Her brother had just huffed. Johnny thinks Daken is trying to avoid him, but he lets him get away with it. For now. Baby-steps.

As for Johnny, he sneaks looks from afar at Daken, who is leaning against the counter and glaring at the kettle. This tall quiet man in elegant clothes that he doesn’t recognize, who wears metal rings in his ear, who is watching him like a stranger (or hardly an acquaintance if you’re feeling generous). But Johnny has lost too many people. His misses his family like a part of him is gone, like the air in is lung. It is nice to have one person back. His friend who liked to share book recs or quirky trivia is still in there somewhere; he has the picture on his phone of an actual wolverine to prove it.

When Laura comes back with tray and drinks and an assortment of four cups and mugs, _and_ snacks, she simply sits on the floor in front of the couch. Her little sister decides to leave her seat and joins her, pointing that “the couch is for the guests”. Daken sighs but decides not to make a fuss and takes place just beside Johnny. Mug in hand. The perfume wafts to him.

“Not your usual blend for nights,” Johnny notices. It’s an odd thing to remember, but he knows at once. Daken holds his gaze a second, his surprise showing.

“What’s his usual blend for nights?” Laura asks, and it seems like it bugs her not to know.

“It doesn’t matter, Laura,” her brother tries to say, while Johnny lets go of a nervous laugh:

“I wouldn’t know. This one is jasmine, he used to have it when we ate Chinese, but the other was more like…” But Daken cuts him, glaring:

“Please, Johnny, stop making my sister feel like she doesn’t know me as well as you do. That’s just rude.”

Johnny flushes, can’t help but break eye contact with Daken, and glances at Laura who looks thoughtful. He reaches for a coffee cup to busy his hands.

“Sorry,” he says softly.

“Is Daken a tea snob?” Gabby asks. She is reaching for sugar and cream for _her_ coffee. Johnny thinks Sue would have a conniption if she saw that, but neither Laura nor Daken seem to intend to ban the girl from the caffeine.

“No,” Daken answers, the moment Laura says “Yes, apparently. But it’s good to know.” Which seems to surprise Daken once again.

Johnny wonders why he looks amazed people would want to know what he likes.

Jonathan tries stealth a bit later to get to one of the biscuits also on the tray but gets thwarted in his efforts by Laura. (By way of impaling the poor biscuit with a claw, stealing it first.)

“Damn, I would have liked a picture of that, too,” Johnny comments. Also, time to try to engage Daken directly: “Now, it was funny, I liked it, the picture you’ve sent. Is that really a wolverine, like, it’s really called that as a specie or is it just a family joke? And I maintain it: you’re as ridiculous. You’ve borne the name too. And you didn’t even know what you were masquerading as. You never _wondered._ ” (Johnny is rambling. He knows. There was a time their conversations were not that clipped. Perhaps Johnny thinks the fastest he will talk, the less likely Daken is going to tell him to shut up and leave.) “Seriously, lame! Wait till I tell Ben, he—”

“Breathe, Johnny. Please.” In spite of Daken’s light tone, it’s meant to cut.

He is making a fool of himself, babbling like that, Johnny realizes. He chances a look towards the sisters. Laura holds his gaze; he could swear her slight smile is an encouraging one. In spite of her beverage, Gabby looks like she is almost dozing off, her head on her sister’s thigh. But a tiny glint between her eyelids lets him know she’s still more or less awake.

*

**

What he learns, tonight? Daken’s tongue is razor sharp. He smiles less easily. He _never_ lowers his eyes, when he talks to him, which was a quirk Johnny had found endearing. He is different from the Daken he remembers: there’s a hardness, edges. (It doesn’t seem to bother the girls.)

But he is _not_ that different. Not as different Daken thinks he is from the man who was Johnny’s friend. It feels like having sparred with someone for months only to realize that person was pulling their punches all this time, but it’s still the same way of fighting, right? Johnny is not fragile. He is not; he can take anything Daken throws at him. (Maybe. He hopes.)

Johnny smiles. Wide and warm and sudden. Just because if Daken is right here, it can reach him. That’s the point. His friend is not lost in fucking space, there’s a fighting chance. It’s only a question of putting the effort in.

He can as well settle for the long haul. So he kicks one sneaker off, helping along with the tow of the other, and then repeats the process with the other foot. He goes to crowd Daken a little more on the couch, sitting too near, putting his feet under the mutant thighs. He’s done it dozens of times. Before. Daken always used to take it in stride, one of his hands falling on an ankle in the course of their conversations, sometimes to emphasize a point or squeezing it to call Johnny on some on his bullshit. This Daken only pointedly looks at him as if he were a heathen. _But he doesn’t move_.

So, time to go over some hurdles, now. Wounds that get ignored fester. Johnny takes a deep breath.

“Look, let’s get this straight. You’ve stabbed Reed and thrown him off a roof,” he says.

Daken straightens up a little, his expression is knowing, as if he expected the subject to come up sooner or later.

“Daken?” Laura asks.

“And I had drugged him first.” Daken replies to her, not him. He shows his teeth. It’s not a smile. “I’m surprised Logan didn’t tell you that.” He’s not rising up yet, but reaches blindly behind him for his coat, still holding his sister’s gaze.

“The problem with Logan was that he talked as much as he listened. Which is not much and certainly not enough,” Laura says. There is an ounce of exasperation in her tone.

“I’m not going to _talk_ , Laura.” Daken’s face sobers somewhat. “I’m not going to apologize for who I’ve become either.”

“I wouldn’t dare ask,” she acidly retorts.

Johnny notices that her hand, which was put on the head of the definitely-sleeping-now-Gabby (because Johnny can’t imagine her no to react to the conversation otherwise) has shifted slowly to cover the visible ear, just in case. Which is silly. Neither sibling seems to want to break this new silence.

“Listen to _me_ ,” Johnny decides to plough on. “That’s not my point. My point was… Reed still liked you _anyway_. He tried to reach you before it was too late and Heat killed you even after that. He saw you with your father. He _mourned_ you more than I was able to at the time.” Daken’s gaze clouds over when he mentions Reed. Johnny doesn’t exactly know how to interpret this change. “I’m not trying to assign blame or giving you another chance. I’m _asking you_ for one.”

At that, Daken visibly starts. “I didn’t see that one coming,” he admits. His eyes are narrowed to slits, considering. Johnny has felt the mutant’s attention switching to him entirely (at last!) during his tirade; the weight of it is familiar.

“I’m full of surprises.” Johnny can’t help the sass in his voice. It’s not like he expects a reply straight away. Even _before_ , the mutant never was friend with direct answers. Daken doesn’t disappoint:

“Yhea, like showing up uninvited. It’s Laura’s _home_. It’s _her little sister’s_ home. It’s not just any place you can barge in because you think you have business there. It’s not even _polite_.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Loose the questioning tone when you say it and I might forgive you. Laura doesn’t seem too upset with you.”

“I’m not,” Laura confirms.

“Yes, she has too much to do with _you_ , obviously,” Johnny retorts. (Can’t help himself.)

One second to the next, he eats one of the sofa’s cushions, thrown to his face, courtesy of Daken. That’s so… juvenile. (It’s _wonderful_.) Johnny squints above the offensive item and cracks a smile.

“S _he has_ ,” Laura agrees. She can’t do sardonic for shit; her face is too fond. But still, Daken’s eyes grow.

“ _Et tu, Brute_ ,” he tells her. Then, turned to Johnny: “You are infuriating.”

“You like him anyway,” Laura mutters in her coffee cup.

“Will you stop it!” Daken hisses to his sister, “He’ll believe you!”

“Ben says that too, that I’m infuriating.”

“He always has had more sense than you, never really liked me.”

Johnny stares a moment, then ignores the sentence altogether.

“It was always easier to talk about you with Reed than with Sue, you know.”

“Reed may be a genius but Sue is the smart one obviously,” Daken comments without missing a beat.

“Give me some credit, I got the message the first time. You think you’re a bad guy.”

_I think?_ Daken mouths. It’s a cold hard fact, as far as he is concerned.

“Consider me warned, OK?” Johnny adds. “Now, move on. _We_ move on with _our_ lives.”

_“We_.” Daken has this way of saying this… W----e. It’s long, there’s no real accent or inflection. It’s _a lot_ of skepticism for a single syllable.

“I’m alone now, Daken. And sometimes—”

“Please – and I can’t believe I’m saying this, it physically pains me to stand for him – but you have the big lug. I’m pretty sure that counts for something.”

Johnny sucks a deep breath. “It does. You’re right; I’m being unfair to him. But I’m angry at him too, even if I shouldn’t be.” It’s the first time he admits it to someone. Bizarrely, he sees understanding in Daken’s eyes.

And he gets it, Daken really does. The mutant thinks of Laura on Mystique’s ship. Sometimes he resented her _so much_ just for being whole, when he lay crippled and useless. And unwittingly flaunting it to his face. And he knows about some of Johnny’s stunts since the rumor of his family’s disappearance. Daken has kept track. Who knows, really, what is happening under the rock, but Ben seems functional enough in comparison, and Johnny, with everything he has lost, can’t even fathom how Ben can be, Daken guesses.

“And sometimes,” Johnny goes on, “sometimes I’d like to let loose the fire. I’d like to make the world feel how horrible I feel. I want to incinerate it… You make sense to me, now,” he slowly says.

A shiver runs down Daken’s spine. This is _not_ right. But why should it affect him so much, that Johnny Storm would hate the world, when he himself does? It still bugs him. The picture is not pretty.

“It’s not like you. Your sister would be _ashamed_.” Johnny looks like he just got gutted. “You sound like me. It _is_ a pestilent place, right. I can’t see it the way you usually see it. I remember you trying to show me, once. But I don’t. (Daken doesn’t sound sad, or resigned, just devastatingly matter of fact.) But I do know you. You’re not like that. Or are you a liar too?”

Laura saves him, focusing on herself her brother’s attention with her next remark:

“Then why give me a chance to be family?” Daken considers her question, gravely considers _her_. “If there’s nothing good, why?” she presses.

“Still asking myself the question. It’s totally getting out of hand. By the way, I didn’t.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I didn’t _give you_ a chance. You were just always there, and it’s not like I could leave, could I? We were not exactly free; we were stuck with Mystique. I just got used to you being here.”

“Reed would say you make it sound like an inoculation,” Johnny comments, wry.

“Your analogy sucks, Daken snaps. “Inoculation is supposed to give your body more defenses, not less.”

“I’d defend you,” Laura answers without missing a beat. Johnny is not sure she remarks how her words seem to _hit_ Daken.

*

**

One day, Laura thinks, she will tell her brother of that time she has almost run. How she had seen Siphon with his hand around Daken’s throat, sucking him off his energy, and her first reaction had been to leave him there and run away. She is going to tell him how close she had been not to come back for him. She is going to remind him that after the monster left he didn’t notice right away his wounds weren’t healing because he was kneeling at her side checking if _she_ was all right.

One day, she is going to tell him how he was the brother she wanted almost from day one. Not right now, though, because she is still too scared to tell him _she almost ran_.

(She still doesn’t realize how cheap Daken really is. She doesn’t know that _coming back_ was already enough. She can’t _fathom_ how much of a wonder it is to him that she stayed at his side even after Sinister, whatever denial he will sprout about their forced stay on Mystique’s ship. She will learn.)

How different her life would have been, had she run away from him? If she had run from Gabby’s plea to stay with her?

“It’s like you’ve told me in Madripoor. You still feel connections are a weakness,” she then muses. “Is it really a bad thing to get attached? For you?”

“I mean, look at her,” her brother replies, a vague gesture of his hand in the direction of Gabby. He is annoyed. “How can’t she see it? How is she even _alive_? She is just _sleeping_ here. She doesn’t know me, she doesn’t know _him_ , to be fair she hardly knows you, Laura, or knows just enough that she should realize any of us could break her in two before she knows. How is that not a weakness?”

“Wow, is this the way you always think? Constant threat assessment?” Johnny blurts out.

Daken arches an eyebrow and very deliberately elaborates: “Threat _and_ gain.” He is daring him to understand. To realize on what was based their relationship back then. Johnny will at last get it. That it was all a manipulation.

“My god, he was right!” Johnny suddenly exclaims.

And here the penny drops, _at last_ , Daken thinks.

But, “Reed had a theory,” the blond continues.

Daken hears the past tense, the hurt behind it, but he wouldn’t know how to ease it anyway, it’s not in his nature. So he pushes back. “Only one?”

“Daken!” Johnny chides. It feels like their old rhythm, if more barbed. It’s disconcerting. “Reed had one theory about you,” he gamely keeps on. “I think he felt guilty that he might have proved you right, the first time we met, about the way you see people, about the way people only use each other and give fancy feelings’ names to that.” Johnny sighs. He has to steady himself a bit for what follows. “The Fantastic Four, we were a family. The epitome of it. And a family of heroes, even. An epitome of goodness. Don’t think we don’t know what most people project on us. But, whatever your reasons were back then, when you asked for _our help_ , Reed shook your hand and asked for a _compensation_.”

And yes, in those days, the situation with Osborn had them kind of cornered, but Johnny knows that when they had left Daken broken and bloody in goddam Osborn’s tower and flew, he had felt sick. He remembers Reed’s haunted gaze when they got home. He remembers how hard they tried, later, to make up for it, when the damage was already done. Johnny wants to think the friendship he subsequently bestowed on Daken wasn’t only an apology. He had liked every single one of their little talks, every one of their meets. He had liked _Daken_. But in retrospect, what ground had Daken to trust it (him), anyway?

“You do realize it was just a manipulation. I didn’t actually _need you_. I wanted to _use you_ against Osborn,” the mutant says. There, it’s in the open, Daken thinks.

And Johnny _willfully_ still ignores it.

“It _doesn’t_ matter. It’s not _my point_. We failed you. We failed to show you _better_.”

Daken sighs like it’s no big deal, when it means _so much_ for Johnny. “This is how it is,” the mutant says, flippantly. “I don’t see why it eats away at you: it just means your family was no different.” (Which might be the cruelest thing to say to _Johnny,_ of all people, who idolized them, but…) “No one cares.”

_No one cares._ Something in the inflexion of Daken’s voice troubles him. _No one cares._ Like a universal truth, like words heard again and again. A motto, a mantra. A _lesson_ _learned_.

“Who TOLD you that,” Johnny hisses like flame meeting water. He wants to kill them. It’s blinding and hot, this hate. Who ingrained this belief so deep into Daken, that they were robbing him of his friend before he had even _met_ him?

“ _Romulus_.” There’s something vicious in Laura’s voice even though it’s not raised.

“Please, don’t say his name. It’s…” Daken hears his own voice as if from afar. This collision is too much. She already knew the name in Madripoor. What had Logan been telling her…? Dammit, the association Romulus-Laura in the same thought stirs something too painful for words, now that he knows Laura better. That this name should touch hers… She is everything that Romulus is not. She is the opposite. They can’t exist in the same space of Daken’s mind.

He feels sick. He feels cold. He wants to fold on himself, but as soon as he realizes his body’s instinctive movement, he just shuts it out. Everything. _Don’t show weakness. No one cares._ The lesson is carved in him; the mental process that has protected him for so long has become easy over the years, too easy. One breath to the next, as if nothing had happened, he bottles it all up. It all lasted less than a few seconds. He straightens up.

Johnny and Laura are staring. Laura is half raised, as if she would have jumped from her sitting position on the floor if Gabby’s sleeping form didn’t pin her down. Johnny’s hand hovers above his arm as if he was about to touch him.

“What,” he states (not asks) flatly.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?” Daken can even summon the veneer of annoyance to sell it, now. But it must come out a little more aggressive than he thought, because Johnny raises his hands as if to placate him.

“We were not trying to gang up on you, OK? We were just worried for a moment, that’s all.”

“I’m. Fine,” he grinds.

“Yes, you are. You are more than fine.” It’s sometimes hard to tell with Laura, but here, it’s evident she feels strongly, saying the words.

Somewhere in the flat a clock softly chimes 2 a.m.

“It’s getting late,” Daken comments after a little stretch of silence, the usual smoothness is back in his voice. “You’re not going to spend the whole night on the floor as a pillow, Laura.”

Laura lets go of an uncharacteristic little snort. “My leg fell asleep long ago,” she says. She gives a little bounce with her knee. Gabby’s head rolls a little.

The kid mumbles something, blindly reaching for Jonathan, stretched not far from her in its own slumber. The sudden contact startles the animal awake. For a reason which makes sense only to it, the wolverine decides to run under the couch. Daken, shifting to the side, lifts his legs just in time to avoid collision with him. Johnny’s feet get out from under the mutant’s thigh, he puts them on the floor and in spite of being the frigging Human Torch, he misses the body warmth at once.

“Hm, yhea, I’ll get off your back, Laura,” Johnny apologetically says, leaning forward to pick up his sneakers. “I’m not sure I intended to stay that long.” Finds one, not the second. He stares at the floor around the couch, puzzled. Even throws a hand under it, just in case…

“Hm, Daken, have you seen my other shoe?”

“What?” The mutant is already standing up, reaching for his coat. He sighs, as if something just occurred to him. “Laura, does your pet like shoes as much as socks?” Johnny notes Daken’s elegant diction and his utter seriousness make the sentence weirder and funnier.

“More,” she says, unperturbed by the fate of Johnny’s footwear. She looks more displeased by the fact her brother prepares to leave, the blond can see it.

“Not good,” Gabby pipes up, sounding half asleep, from where she was drowsing on Laura’s thigh… She straightens up, unfocused eyes blearily darting about her. Her little pink hair clip stays attached only by miracle. She’s devastatingly cute. “Jonathan?” she calls, a little bit more lively.

A flash of brown, Jonathan-shaped, darts from under the couch, something red (in the shape of a sneaker) in his mouth. The wolverine almost breaks its nose on the bedroom’s door that happens to be closed, then turns and tries to reach the entryway, trying to run with its prize. It paws the wood of the door with a pitiful mewling sound.

Gabby and Laura come behind the wolverine after a large a detour by the kitchen, Johnny faces it. The animal is cornered.

“Hey there, little buddy… It’s mine, you know?”

The wolverine’s claws – they look a lot sharper up close – almost get his extended hand. He’s lucky for Daken’s incredible reflexes. The mutant has grabbed his wrist just in time to jerk his limb away.

“Let go of the goddam shoe!” Daken booms. The mutant is losing his patience, as he advances on the wolverine. His lip curls over his canines, a hint of feral, eyes obscured by his brow and narrowed to angry slits. They all feel the change in the air. Even to Johnny and his deficient humane sense of smell, Daken’s pheromones make danger around them taste like metal and ground glass on the tongue. It affects the animal the most, maybe excessively. It’s the trigger to flight or fight response.

Good news is, Jonathan lets go of the shoe. Bad news is, the animal looks like it’s ready to attack, not flee. Its little body balances from one side to another. With its little face contorted in fury, its fur spiking like mad, its razor teeth bared, it is a picture of killing rage. Without any warning Jonathan literally jumps at Daken’s throat in his mad frenzy.

For Laura, time seems to slow to a crawl. Her brother doesn’t pull his claws out (flash of relief, a tiny one). Doesn’t even try to push back the animal with his good arm (first hint of unease). His face is serene, even when his weak arm betrays him a little and fails to swerve the mammal properly away. _He is going to let Jonathan maul him_ , and that realization sparks the reaction out of her, an ark of cold, pure fright hits her, which has nothing to do with Daken’s manipulation of feelings. And time takes its normal course back. She jumps forward.

Four hands run the animal into the ground. Laura realizes that her fingers are clutching Gabby’s ones in the thick fur. They effectively pin the wolverine down, still screeching and clawing.

Johnny’s fingers are buried in Daken’s shoulders. He, too, had seen the catastrophe waiting to happen. Blood had rushed to his ears, like the mighty whoosh sound of roaring fire. He was standing just behind the mutant, all he had been able to do was reach for him, grab and haul him back against his chest, almost toppling them both over.

When Daken lowers himself down in the aftermath to kneel and put his hand softly on the still immobilized growling wolverine’s head, Johnny thinks it’s easier to just follow him to the ground. His legs were a little wobbly anyway. His fingers don’t seem to want to unclench. _All this for one stupid shoe, god, Daken…_ But he can’t manage to get the words out just yet.

“There, there,” Daken coos. He is petting the little head, his thumb rubbing the tiny cheekbone under the right eye. The air is cloyed with a subtle fragrance. The closest thing it reminds him of would be baby skin, Johnny thinks, remembering holding his nephews close when they were teeny little things. The memory would hurt more if the feeling the smell evoked weren’t the one of feeling safe and loved.

Daken mutters something, then, a little disgruntled. “I might have overdone it a little earlier.”

Jonathan yawns, eyes half-closed. Laura and Gabby release the wolverine. It simply sits on its haunches and starts licking its ruffled fur, as if nothing had happened.

“Ho, really?” Johnny can’t help himself. It comes out muffled; his face may be slightly buried in the soft cashmere of Daken’s pullover.

“That was scary,” Gabby says. “Don’t ever do that again. I’m talking to the both of you.” Her eyes flutter between her pet and her brother.

“It’s not its fault, I made Jonathan do it. And I heal.” As he talks, Daken reaches for the discarded shoe between thumb and forefinger. _His_ prize, now.

Gabby purses her lips and Johnny thinks she is going to say something more. And if she doesn’t he will, because Daken regenerating himself doesn’t mean he has to like see him get hurt. It reminds him too much of this day when he was _ready_ to burn him, and _burned_ Logan, and he still feels a little sick about it. He doesn’t want to have to look at Daken in this kind of state ever.

“I see it now,” Laura says, out of the blue, cutting their conversation short, “how it’s a good namesake. Wolverine.”

“All cute and hairy on the outside, killing machine on the inside?” Johnny guesses.

Daken shudders. Actually shudders, Johnny can feel it under his hands. Yup, his fingers still don’t want to obey him and let go.

“Are you saying Logan is a _cinnamon roll who can actually kill you_?” he says and sounds _so_ disgusted. But then again Daken had never really liked the type-of-personality memes Johnny remembers sending him all the time.

“Somebody just ruined cinnamon for life for Daken,” Gabby singsongs. She has grabbed Jonathan around the middle in her arms. The animal looks like an oversized furry doll rather than a plushie and is trying to nuzzle her chin by bending its little neck backwards.

*

**

_She’ll be fine whether I do or I don’t_. It’s a little tidbit Laura has heard from Daken’s phone conversation earlier. She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but after all her home is basically _one_ open room. And now she keeps hearing the sentence over and over in her head. There was a point when it would have been true. But she’s well past that. Only, Daken hasn’t got a fucking clue, apparently.

And now he is about to leave, for God knows how long, and all she’ll have will be semi-episodic phone calls, and it suddenly doesn’t feel like enough.

Johnny is sitting on the floor to put back his newfound shoe (as if the couch wasn’t only ten feet away…). Gabby is standing just in front of him, still cuddling the wolverine and trying to convince Jonathan to apologize to their guest (the animal seems clueless). And Daken has already his coat on. He crosses gaze with her and seems about to say something, make his goodbyes perhaps.

“We need to talk,” she cuts before he can. Her hand grabs his sleeve and she drags him to the bathroom. He is oddly compliant, but gift horse and all that, Laura doesn’t wonder why.

When she closes the door behind them, cuts Gabby’s and Johnny’s voices, the sudden silence surprises her a little. The room is tiny. They hardly fit in there together. She sits on the edge of the bathtub, he leans a hip against the faucet, waiting.

She has to collect her thoughts; she doesn’t know exactly how to articulate what she needs to say. And it doesn’t come to her. All of her body seems to deflate. Her elbows are on her thighs. Her head falls into her hands. A picture of defeat.

“It’s okay, Laura. I won’t come back anytime soon.”

She feels herself blanch and raises her face again to glare.

“Or I’m missing something,” he goes on, searching her expression. “You don’t want me to come back _at all_. Bad influence for the kid and all that.”

She FREEZES, this time, and she can see that she involuntarily makes Daken think he got it right, but she is so, SO… ( _shockedangrysad_ ) that she is physically unable to contradict him. And she doesn’t even know what scares her more. That it’s really what he thinks or that he doesn’t look like he cares.

“I’ve heard what you’ve said.” It’s the first thing she can let out.

“I’ve said a lot tonight. You’ve learned things you didn’t want to know about me, didn’t you? Things you didn’t like? There was a few. You’ll have to be more specific.” There’s a looseness in his body she doesn’t trust. He could be as ready to bolt as to lunge.

“You think it makes no difference to me whether you’re here or not.” And if there is a clear accent of resentment in her sentence… Well. The more she thinks about it, the more she is pissed. So.

He looks puzzled. _When?_ the narrowing of his eyes says.

“You’ve told Johnny, on the phone, and you had no reason to lie to him about that.”

“So you admit I’m sometimes a liar.” Somehow, it makes him, not exactly smile, but there’s a shadow of approval in the curve of his lips.

“When one wants to know you, one tends to ignore half of what your mouth says,” she mumbles. “Don’t you see that’s exactly why I should have more than phone calls to get to know you? Me and Gabby should get more.”

“So you’re saying… I got it wrong?” He is still not convinced.

“And don’t get me started about the tea.”

“The tea!?” And now he looks lost, when it makes perfect sense to Laura.

“You’re my brother,” she states.

“Biologically not true. But I’ll let it slide. For the sake of your argument.”

“Yes, do it, once and for all. I shouldn’t have to repeat it for you to believe me. It’s insulting.”

_That_ shuts him up, she notices. She tenses when he moves, but he just sits near her on the bathtub’s edge. He mirrors her stance – forearms on thighs, she doesn’t know if it’s intentional –, but entwines his fingers elegantly.

“I didn’t mean to insult you,” he quietly says.

“Good.”

“But sometimes, it… bothers me that you’re just like Logan in a totally opposite way.”

“That sentence makes no sense at all.”

“It does. I trust – for lack of a better word… Or I can _bear easier_? – people who see me for who I am. Not just, the son of… you know.”

“Are there people who know you to this extent?” She tries to keep up, she really tries.

“A few? They usually don’t like me much, but at least they usually have a reason and have fun at outwardly hating me.” He sounds amused, like he’s thinking of somebody in particular.

“Did you trust Logan better, then? Didn’t he know you?”

“Ha, but Logan only saw what I _wasn’t_ compared to him and never really cared to learn what I wanted or needed.” _From him_ goes unspoken but is still heard. “And he couldn’t accept that I _refused_ to be fixed as _he_ saw fit.” It’s unclear whether it’s bitterness or anger in his tone, but the hurt is real.

It’s a cruel portrayal, but Laura is not sure she can deny it as far as Daken is concerned. And it pains her.

“Both of you don’t know me,” Daken resumes after a beat. “You think you do, because you know things about me. You both base your appreciation of what I am, what you expect from me, more on your own experiences than anything else, and that colors your judgment. I’m not _you_ , I’m not _him_. I’m not a fundamentally good person which was bent out of shape by what happened to them and regains the freedom to be true to their real, good, nature,” he says, leaning his shoulder against hers for a second, “and I’m not the _mindless_ monster Logan once was and hated so much afterwards he saw it in me all the time. Maybe I’m a monster, but not that kind of monster. But anyway, it can’t end well for me. He’d never have expected anything from me, hence is everlasting disappointment, and you’ll expect too much, sooner or later, hence _yours_.”

“You think I’m not objective.” She frowns. “Then, what do you need from me?”

“Nothing, Laura.” She glances at him and sees him roll his eyes, a tad self-deprecating: “Shocking, I know.” And then, more seriously: “I thought you knew.” To somebody who doesn’t know Daken, it wouldn’t sound very encouraging. For people who know him, Laura guesses, who are aware of his manipulative ways, his habit to get things from people by getting close to them, it _is_ something special to hear him admit that he would stick with you without expecting anything in return.

“Would you hear what _I_ need from you?” she finally enquires.

Laura looks at his face. There’s a hint of fear, here, that she doesn’t understand, because ulterior motives is not the way she thinks. (It’s _his_. And it hurts to think she might wnant him around for _a reason_.)

“Yes, it’s a commitment, I’m asking,” she adds, oblivious. “And it’s not something… limited in time. You can come back any time and tell me when you’re ready to hear it. Maybe I _care to learn_ and _me not being objective_ shouldn’t be held against me. I want you. Like I want Gabby.”

She lets her head fall on his shoulder. He lets her stay like that without comment, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.

“For now,” she resumes, “let’s just say, you make a difference. In my life. A good one. You should know that.” She sadly smiles and adds: “I thought you knew.”

She is not sure but thinks she feels the faint pressure on his lips on her hair and closes her eyes a minute. She feels the peace and quiet surrounding her. It only lasts a handful of seconds.

“Your bathtub is damn uncomfortable,” Daken comments out of the blue. “No more heart to heart in bathrooms.”

Laura snorts.

“I’ll find a nicer place next time I attack poor unsuspecting you with my feelings,” she replies.

“ _Ch’._ And here I thought it was my special power, attacking people with feelings.” There’s something wrong with the levity he tries to infuses in the words, like it doesn’t strike the intended note. It feels like he aimed for banter, but fell short, assaulted by a stray thought. She’s about to ask, but then, somebody bangs the door with insistence.

“Quit hogging Daken! I need a hug!” Gabby is shouting through the wood panel.

As they get out, Gabby launches herself at Daken; he hasn’t much choice in embracing her back.

“My first brotherly hug,” the girl mumbles, face buried in Daken’s coat. He grips harder. Leaning into it.

“Let’s make it count, then,” he softly says, bent forward to reach her ear. When they’re done, Johnny is looking expectantly at Daken.

“Don’t even think about it,” the mutant says.

Laura sees the blond raise his hands in capitulation, assuming the most harmless air. She doesn’t believe it for one second. Does she feel smug as she rises on her tiptoes to claim her own hug? Yes, she does. Gabby was right, she thinks. Practice makes perfect.

*

**

Johnny actually walks Daken to his car. The mutant doesn’t comment, content to practically ignore him.

“It was nice meeting you,” Johnny says. To all intent and purposes, he is serious. It kinda felt like a first time.

“Beg your pardon?” Daken answers, distracted. He is about to put his key to his car door. Then the words catch up with him. He locks eyes with Johnny, disbelieving.

“Johnny, Johnny, Johnny. You never learn, do you? You spend a few hours with someone and you think you’ve got them all figured out? _Again?_ ”

Suddenly Daken is in his space.

There’s the pin prick of a claw Johnny didn’t even see come out; just under his jaw, right to the jugular. It doesn’t pierce skin but is impossible to ignore. Johnny can feel his blood pulse against it. The mutant rotates his wrist a little and the other claw on the hand plays a little with a strand of blond hair.

“I could drop you dead, right here and right now. Wouldn’t even break a sweat. Wouldn’t even shed a _tear_. Think you could flame on before I did?” He has a breathy laugh, a cloying sound like too heavy a fabric on skin. “Wanna _try_?”

Liquid grace and strength, dizzying.

Suddenly Johnny is neatly pinned against the car.

The mutant is pressed to him, from thigh to chest. Daken’s mouth so close to his they’re breathing each other’s air. Claws have disappeared but one hand his holding his throat, just shy of constricting. Daken’s eyes are half closed, his chin jutted out; he is sneering and predatory.

“I could make you do things to me. I could make you want me bent down on this car, want to make me scream, right here and right now.”

“Do you always go from zero to filthy in one second flat?” There’s not much breath left in Johnny. His words are hardly whispered. A silent defeated laugh rakes his body. “And you wouldn’t even have to _make me_ want you.”

_Hm. I knew it,_ Daken mouths against the skin of his neck. Unashamedly smug. Johnny shivers under the sensation of these lips on his skin. He throws his head back, closing his eyes. Still, his next words are clear and distinct. A bit melancholy:

“I’m just not sure it’s what _you want_. You’d do that only to prove a point, or get something. Not just because I’m me and you’re you, right?”

Johnny is careful to telegraph all his movements as he engulfs Daken in a tight hug.

“What are you doing,” Daken all but snarls. In spite of the fury in the tone, he seems frozen on the spot.

“Obviously you need more hugs.” Johnny knows Daken can’t see, so he allows himself a smile, fond and sad.

“What the hell are you talking ab— ho. I saw what you did here.” And after a beat: “It feels like a very long time ago.” There’s a long sigh, and Daken seems to settle in the embrace the tiniest bit.

“Don’t be a stranger. Please.” Johnny squeezes one last time, just to show he’s serious.

“I’ll think about it. Now let go.” The mutant’s voice is muffled in Johnny’s shoulder.

Daken pushes him a little. Damn, it’s not that he’s that strong but he knows where to apply pressure.

“Killjoy,” Johnny teases, releases him, and Daken snorts. He doesn’t lose any time afterwards getting into his car.

The blond watches the vehicle pull away and leave in the scream of abused rubber. Show off. He raises his arm as a goodbye, not sure Daken will bother to look back in the mirror, and hugs himself a minute. For a moment he had wanted so much, _so much_ , to let Daken play his game to its conclusion. Whatever it would be.

When he turns on his heels, about to flame on and fly to whence he came from, he almost (“ _Wow_!”) bumps into Gabby.

“Bathroom window,” the kid laconically explains. “Laura thinks I’m taking a bath. A long one.”

“In the middle of the night? And she won’t be suspicious.” Johnny lets his dubiousness show.

“I’m supposed to be able to indulge now. She likes when I do.” The look on the kid’s face is fond. But then she goes on without transition: “Don’t worry too much about Daken. I don’t think you failed him. He doesn’t realize it, but he trusts you’re genuine, you know? Otherwise he wouldn’t try to convince you _he’s_ bad for you.”

“Look, I appreciate the sentiment, but it was your first time meeting the guy… How would you know, anyway? You’ve slept half the time I’ve been here,” he teases.

“You totally fell for it!” Gabby sounds smug, but soon turns wistful. “I’ve had a lot of sisters,” the girl adds. Johnny senses a longer story but doesn’t call her back on it. “I was the littlest. They wanted to protect me. Do you know how many times I feigned sleep just to keep track of what was really happening in the lab that they wouldn’t tell me? I like Daken, he reminds me of Bellona. He can do kind, he just has no idea what kind is. But Laura is a fantastic woman. She’ll show him.” She nods one time. Sure of her words.

“And you will too, I guess, ” Johnny smiles.

“I’ll call him an idiot every time he’ll need to hear it,” she agrees.

*

**

The door of the bathroom is open as she climbs back inside.

_Ha, busted._ Gabby winces.

Laura is waiting for her in the main space, absentmindedly leafing through a battered magazine without pity put on Jonathan’s back who is curled on her lap.

“Last goodbye to Johnny?” she asks, not raising her eyes.

“We need to prepare for a shovel talk, we may need it,” Gabby comments.

Laura frowns. “Has he made a move on Daken?” She doesn’t sound particularly pleased.

“Daken made a move, for all the wrong reasons, and Johnny was smart enough to say no for now. Still, we might need one. Just in case they pull their shit together and Johnny tries something.”

“Wait, shovel talk?” Laura asks.

“It’s—”

“No, I meant, who needs a _shovel_ with these?” Her claws pop with a sharp **snikt**. Her eyes are shining.

The younger girl scrunches her nose a little. “Hm, claw talk, I like that,” she says. “Or Snikt talk?”

“Go to bed, Gabby,” Laura gently admonishes.

Not ten minutes later, her phone pings. It’s a text from Daken.

_Nice evening. See you soon._

“Good night!” Gabby shouts from her bedroom.

“It was,” Laura confirms, more to herself than to be heard. She is smiling at the tiny screen.

_Better sooner than later_ , she types back.

**The End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading till the end !  
> If my brain agrees to work in the next few days, I'll try to make a few posts on tumblr about the comics' panels (more or less obscurely) referenced here.


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